PARIS, March 21 — Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a Unesco report released today.
The 9,000 gigatons of ice lost from glaciers since 1975 are roughly equivalent to "an ice block the size of Germany with the thickness of 25 meters," Michael Zemp, director of the Switzerland-based World Glacier Monitoring Service, said during a press conference announcing the report at the UN headquarters in Geneva.
The dramatic ice loss, from the Arctic to the Alps, from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, is expected to accelerate as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, pushes global temperatures higher. This would likely exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems across the world as sea levels rise and these key water sources dwindle.
The report coincides with a Unesco summit in Paris marking the first World Day for Glaciers, urging global action to protect glaciers around the world.
Zemp said that five of the last six years registered the largest losses, with glaciers losing 450 gigatons of mass in 2024 alone.
The accelerated loss has made mountain glaciers one of the largest contributors to sea level rise, putting millions at risk of devastating floods and damaging water routes that billions of people depend on for hydroelectric energy and agriculture.
About 1.1 billion people live in mountain communities, which suffer the most immediate impacts of glacier loss, due to the increasing risks with natural hazards and unreliable water sources. The remote locations and difficult terrains also make cheap fixes difficult to come by.
Between 2000 and 2023, melting mountain glaciers have caused 18 millimeters of global sea level rise, about 1 mm per year. Every millimeter can expose up to 300,000 people to annual flooding, according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service.
— Reuters
